Why I chained myself to Kinder Morgan's tar sands tanker terminal

Yesterday, I chained myself to the gate of Kinder Morgan’s oil tanker-loading facility in Metro Vancouver alongside my new friend Ben, while 14 fellow activists entered the site to shut it down for the day as part of a protest against tar sands expansion.

The Harper government has launched a renewed effort to push two tar sands pipelines through British Columbia, including the one that would end at Kinder Morgan’s facility, along with proposed tar sands pipelines to the U.S. and through eastern Canada and Quebec.

Harper’s plan to expand the tar sands has run into an "unbroken wall of opposition” in B.C. including over 130 First Nations, along with environmental groups and supporters, who recognize that every extra tanker or kilometer of pipeline increases the risks to the environment and communities.

Eastern Pipeline projects are facing the same strong opposition in Ontario and Quebec as well as in the United States for the Keystone XL pipeline project.

The tar sands are already the fastest rising source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and one of the largest reserves of fossil fuels on the planet. It would be reckless to deepen our addiction to oil by building new pipelines that enable tar sands expansion, when we should be investing those resources into green alternatives.